The European Investment Bank Invests €21.65M in Italia Venture I Fund

The investment, which marks the first backing EIB has done in the Italian Venture Capital industry, follows previous commitments made by the Ministry of Economic Development/Invitalia, Cisco Group, the Sardinia Banking Foundation and Metec Group, the fund has reached €87m.

The investment aims to boost the growth of the vc industry in Italy, which plays a minor role if compared with European countries. According to official fugures, in 2016, €2.7 billion have been invested into French startups, €2 billion in Germany, €600 million in Spain and €180m in Italy.
These discouraging stats were confirmed by the declining trend recorded in January-September 2017, which resulted in an embarassing -30% compared to the same period in 2016.

Fully owned by Invitalia, and led CEO Salvo Mizzi, Invitalia Ventures SGR is managing the fund which is now establishing itself as the main early stage VC operator in Italy, able to catalyze public-private capital and invest it in the Italian innovation ecosystem.

In less than two year, Italia Venture I Fund has invested in 16 startups and innovative SMEs by committing approx €11m and generating overall investment rounds of €33m through its co-investment mechanism, which features an impressive network of national and international investors.